the incidentals

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 07:14:40 GMT

A color pencil piece for a small exhibition celebrating the 3rd anniversary of my local illustration group. The theme is "3" in whatever form and degree of subtlety. Hint: look at her right eye and the longrette's glass. I have always wanted to work monocles / longrettes into an artwork for a reason that is more of an in-joke. That and I really love The New Yorker's gentleman mascot.

On another note, I realize I've been woefully absent for quite a long while. Apologies. All I can say is that this one and a half year has been a turbulent one, and I went through periods of self-doubt and apathy that often dampened my creative mood. I'm still trying to climb out of it. For the absence, both in art, updates and commenting on other beautiful posts on my flist, I'm so sorry.

Cupid & Psyche

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:46:12 GMT

a drop of rainwater

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:50:01 GMT

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:46:23 GMT

The drawing is commissioned for a storybook about two magpies.

Celebration

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:42:47 GMT

OIC's 2nd anniversary / tee

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:37:52 GMT

small offerings, lost messages, apologies

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 22:32:44 GMT

L' Officiel Singapore / Dec 08
Beauty Opener

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:05:11 GMT

Whoops, sorry for being inactive for the past month! I've been quite busy.

On the art front, I've been dabbing into watercolors again. As usual, it is a bit hard to control and not really my best medium ( I prefer pencils and pens to brushes ) but it is good to play with it again after some time. I also have an exciting project going on right now, the sketches are coming soon after I get them transfered to my computer.

Also, I feel very flattered to be featured in Carmine Magazine courtesy of the lovely speakdaggers  . I enjoyed reading past interviews, especially finding more about Zoetica and Sarah Ferrick and the beautiful, organic jewelry-sculptures of OctopusMe. There's also an interview and write-up about my works on the newly launched KVLT magazine, which promotes independent art and culture scene of all mediums in Singapore. It's really encouraging to see such local movements here, personally, so I wish the team the best of luck!

How's everyone doing? *Prepares to check friendslist*

Oh, and the third happy news come in form of a special gift:

A friend of mine, mauschmausch  , a conservatoire-trained musician / pianist and talented self-taught artist, gave me this portrait ( who looks exactly like me, to see it for the first time was so surreal!) , which is the most awesome birthday gift ever. Can you believe this is her first watercolor drawing? Awesome, I know.

To those celebrating Singapore's national day yesterday and today, I hope you've had a pleasant, adventurous weekend.

medical ethics

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:36:52 GMT

Inspired by this article in NY Magazine

"Can One Sibling Pull the Plug If the Others Don’t Want To? And five other vexing medical-ethics dilemmas, examined."

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:56:35 GMT

Another experiment with book covers.

From Amazon:

"Animals, especially imperiled animals, make ominous cameos in nearly all of these stories. There's the wounded anteater who crashes the hotel room of two old friends, both of whom seem willing to sacrifice their friendship for a few nights of banal, artificial romance. There are the thousands of cows whose imprisonment in a beef-processing plant haunts a young man, himself imprisoned by a relative's blithe and repeated attempts at suicide. There's the sheep struck and killed on the road by a driver rendered temporarily insane with unfocused, diabolical jealousy. And in the last and most curious story, there's a chatty talking dog named Steven, who narrowly survives being thrown in a river and commits the remainder of his spared life to running, eating and playing with maximum gusto."

P.S: I could have done the typo better. The 'hungry' was kind of shoddy.

lovers

Sat, 31 May 2008 21:30:29 GMT

The kind of drawings insomniacs do when not in the mood for sleeping although it is well past three AM.

Right now I have a craving for movies with gorgeous imagery, a sense of quietness and melancholy ( think Wong Kar Wai, Jeunet, or Park Chan Wook without the gore ) Recommendations, anyone?

CURVY 5 scans

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:53:25 GMT

My copy came today!

I feel like Indiana Jones just after he's gotten his hands on one of those precious ancient skulls.

Thank you Yen magazine. Thank you Curvy Team. This is really an honor, and..it's one thing to know you're in, and quite another to see the pages yourself. Just a very sweet feeling.

And in continuation to the previous post, this is my imaginary cover of The Virgin Suicides.

Wed, 21 May 2008 15:33:05 GMT

Reinterpreting existing book covers makes a fun project.

The Post-Birthday World synopsis ( from Amazon / Publishers Weekly):

The smallest details of staid coupledom duel it out with a lusty alternate reality that begins when a woman passes up an opportunity to cheat on her longtime boyfriend in Shriver's latest (after the Orange Prize–winning We Need to Talk About Kevin). Irina McGovern, a children's book illustrator in London, lives in comfortable familiarity with husband-in-everything-but-marriage-certificate Lawrence Trainer, and every summer the two have dinner with their friend, the professional snooker player Ramsey Acton, to celebrate Ramsey's birthday. One year, following Ramsey's divorce and while terrorism specialist "think tank wonk" Lawrence is in Sarajevo on business, Irina and Ramsey have dinner, and after cocktails and a spot of hash, Irina is tempted to kiss Ramsey. From this near-smooch, Shriver leads readers on a two-pronged narrative: one consisting of what Irina imagines would have happened if she had given in to temptation, the other showing Irina staying with Lawrence while fantasizing about Ramsey. With Jamesian patience, Shriver explores snooker tournaments and terrorism conferences, passionate lovemaking and passionless sex, and teases out her themes of ambition, self-recrimination and longing. The result is an impressive if exhausting novel.

May Day

Sun, 11 May 2008 16:59:59 GMT

Say hey to May!

First, a happy news:

I submitted my works for the fifth edition of Curvy, and I'm in! I literally went 'waaaaaah!' from my bedroom to living room to the kitchen and then back again when I first got the notification email. I found a lot of wonderful female illustrators from the past Curvy books ( to name a few: Fumi Nakamura, Matilda Ruta, Andrea Wicklund, Sylvia Ji), so to be counted in among those talented artists is like winning a lottery ticket to outer space.

So if you chance upon it, do take a browse! I can't wait to receive my contributor's copy.

And since I've dropped off the face of the earth ( kind of a bad habit, really) for months, here are....endless images and updates:

Hello May!

Yeah, it's kind of late, we're midway through, but uh, I was very busy and anxious about school-related issues for the first week and May, and had my modem malfunctioning the following week. But wow. We have arrived at the year of...I don't know...summer blockbusters. For some (like me) graduations are coming, and job/rent/1001 other anxieties are ahead. But before that...

Celebrating the end of the semester! Here's a couple of pictures from my semester works....

I am doing a caricature book based on the idea of how the things that we wear leads to assumption of our characters. The sort-of-model for the drawing above is my friend Nat.

I had my birthday last Thursday. It was a quiet night. I couldn't really sleep...I thought a lot about how life changes and sometimes you just have to jump with faith, from one boat to another. Yes, I have the newlygraduated syndrome. XD

Below are pictures of my assessment studio, which is almost always locked except for marking process. Pictures are taken in a rush, so I don't have enough time to capture all my classmates' excellent works.

This belonged to Weiming, who did a study on discarded objects.

Shayani, on repetition of shapes:

Don, on eco-waste:

Dinesh, exploring the color of white:

....and a lot more XD.

I guess that's all for now.

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:18:19 GMT

Close-ups:

A couple of illustrations for D&AD students awards. Part two will come in later.

The brief, 'Identity' is to make a sixteen-page book with illustrations about 'you or someone else'.

Some sketches and visuals for school project about everyday wearable objects ( glasses, slogan T-shirts, tattoos, sneakers, branded goods, nail polish, piercings, ear studs, cigarette, stilettos, skinny jeans etc ) and their significance in building myths and suggestions when worn by an individual.

The sketch of the lady with glasses and tattoo of little birds was modeled after a photo I saw on Facehunter.blogspot.com.

On Bussorah Street:, taking my camera for an outdoor walk for once:

More updates to come....

I hope everyone had a great Chinese New Year / Valentine nights...

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:35:55 GMT

I feel compelled to spread this news ( and an urgent call for help!)

edit: I should have found it sooner. But I think there's still enough time for donations...

December update~

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 06:48:49 GMT

Some illustrations I did for L'Officiel Singapore-beauty section. ( '07 Dec issue; out now )

Art direction by Laurel Tan....

Basically I was asked to evoke a dark, Tim Burton-esque kind of Christmas imaginary scenes.....something 'hauntingly beautiful'. I don't know if I pulled that off, but there were lots of fun in the process. :D

Sketches & drawings not included in the mag:

And I got a little blurb in Culturepush! Yippi~

We're one week down to Christmas and two weeks closer to New Year's Eve! How are you guys planning to celebrate?

Oh, those residing in Singapore, if you have time, do visit Andy Yang & Mindflyer's joint exhibition in Night&Day Gallery ( infos and what's what here....)

off for lunch!

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:32:31 GMT

When you haven't updated your journal in a long while, doing that feels like taking baby steps, learning to walk again. Even copy-pasting flickr codes seems like a daunting task. But I miss my journal, livejournal cottagers, and update is much overdue. So here we go.

Drawings!

There was this T-shirt competition I was supposed to join, which theme was 'Utopia'. In the end I didn't submit my work because I feel that they were more into vector and digital works, and I had had other plans for this particular drawing. The idea came from Nena's song '99 Luftballons'.

An illustration I did for House ; the concept was to integrate the three elements of the building ( cafe/restaurant, spa on the second floor, and bar) into one continuous panoramic scene.

It was a beautiful place, like a bizzare version of Alice in Wonderland with rooms named Garbo ( a typewritten script of Ninotchka is painted on its interior wall), Kubrick ( with a display of antique lomo cameras facing the glass partition), and (Jean) Miro. The spa rooms are full of black and white silhouette stencils of antique mirrors, animals, etc. There's a centuries-old ( reportedly) tree in the backyard--it was sort of eerie but pretty at the same time. They named it Priscilla.

They have an adopt-an-artist program; I was lucky to have been the first one featured. The small-ish exhibition will be held in the gallery inside the restaurant itself until Dec 15. The address is 8D Dempsey Road....so if you happen to live in Singapore, and have some extra time to spare within these weeks, do come to visit!

What you can find right there:

custom notebooks - collaboration with Books Actually, which produces really really beautiful handmade journals. (http://booksactually.com/)

prints on canvas

original drawings...

and smallish stuff; jigsaw puzzles, badges, postcards...

And a couple of thoughts:

There was a great article in last month's GQ* (the 45th anniversary issue) about Pernkopf's Anatomy, perhaps the most comprehensive, detailed and artistic work on anatomy ever published. Eduard Pernkopf employed eleven out-of-work artists over the course of almost thirty years to produce this remarkable work. Every anatomical detail is said to be made alive by the precision and imagination of the artists. It is truly the standard by which all other works are measured. Even today there are doctors that consult the work before surgery and insist that no equal has been produced. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning of the story. Pernkopf was a loyal Nazi in 1930s Austria and participated in the purging of Jewish students and faculty at the University of Vienna, where he was a professor before the invasion and the president after. Many of the artists signed their work with swastikas or other signs showing their loyalty to Hitler. There is speculation that some of the cadavers illustrated are concentration camp victims.

Currently, the Anatomy is out of print and there are no plans for future editions. When so much good can come of the work, shouldn't it be made available for reference? On the other hand, the ends certainly do not justify the means and the work's publication may support that by inference. Quite the dilemma. What does it mean when something of such significance and beauty comes out of such an atrocious crime? To use a less grave example, if Nabokov had written Lolita from an inappropriate or illegal personal experience, should that stand as a mark against the work? I'm sure there are numerous examples of this, some that we're aware of and some that will never be know, but does the context in which a classic is produced ultimately make a difference?

--source: Souzek Republic.

This weekend, after a long overdue, I finally returned a couple of books to the National Library, along with a hefty sum of fine, which I richly deserved. Well, at least the books really helped my research. After returning the books, I decided to hole up in the basement library for a couple of hours to pass time - school break still feels surreal to me. Anyway, I came upon this interesting article written by Michael Paterniti from GQ, 'The Most Dangerous Beauty' about an American scientist whose life was changed, for better and worse, by Pernkopf's Anatomy. The article questions, among others, whether it is fair to judge a work of art based on its history or background rather than by its impact and contributions to the world. And it does so in a very....chilling way, in the sense that it doesn't really flinch from stating things, directly or through implications, that could have gotten the writer accused of advocating Nazi's unspeakable cruelty, and yet there is a little bit of truth when he states that because Pernkopf's Anatomy has been a benchmark in medical illustrations then, and a long time after it was published, helping doctors saved lives with its remarkable details, does it matter that there is a probability that Pernkoph and his artists might have used corpses from...you know? I mean, it does matter, of course, but what if its banning prevents doctors to save lives? Granted, now we live in a time where medical technology and science is so advanced, such book is probably not needed anymore, but I guess the question still remains.

In a somewhat more upbeat note, I was swimming through the New York Times when I found Marjane Satrapi's blog, written and drawn Persepolis-style. It was a really really entertaining and insightful read. There's no pretense of intellectuality, but you can really see through her honesty and humor and those darn funny cartoons that she's very intelligent and wise, and very frank. I don't think she updated it often, but for what it's worth, you can read it here.

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:11:06 GMT

I made this while chatting with my French online buddy. He helped me to translate the title to French. I thought it was appropriate, since Red Riding Hood began as a fable from France before it was rewritten by the Grimm brothers.

Have you seen Nagi Noda's Coca Cola commercial? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKGw_KYH63k
This sketch was inspired by the video. I wanted to make something with this concept on a very, very long piece of paper or something across the wall but for now it has to stay on my sketchbook.

She's hugging the bunny, not suffocating him.

Inner-self portrait, haha. Thanks to miss_contraire for the comment on my flickr page.

if tinkerbell wear a red dress...

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:51:21 GMT

for the lovely Katie Ann and her mom.

New semester has just begun. Wish me all the luck.

I'll need it.

Take care, you all. <3

Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:38:40 GMT

Tick-tock.
A3
Watercolor paper
Tea, watercolor, colored pencil

went to national library today. I'd never known how cozy the main library in the basement was, or the fact that they provide such an impressive collection of books (and a very up-to-date one as well )<3. Elizabeth Hand's generation lost is a compelling read.

A boy with a parrot on his shoulder was walking along the railway tracks. His gait was dreamy and he swung a daisy as he went. With each step the boy dragged his toes in the rail bed, as if measuring out his journey with careful ruled marks of his shoetops in the gravel. It was midsummer, and there was something about the black hair and pale face of the boy against the green unfurling flag of the downs beyond, the rolling white eye of the daisy, the knobby knees in their short pants, the self-important air of the handsome gray parrot with its savage red tail feather, that charmed the old man as he watched them go by. Charmed him, or aroused his sense -- a faculty at one time renowned throughout Europe-- of promising anomaly.

I recently discovered Michael Chabon's 'The Final Solution'. Although very short in length, I love it for Chabon's portrayal of Holmes at the sunset of his age. He's as charming as he is in Doyle's world, but with hints of vulnerability and wisdom that thankfully never descends into sentimentality. It's a sad little story that shines through its quiet simplicity.

Has anyone ever read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay? Do you have any good book to recommend? I prefer something short-to-medium length, collections of short stories, beautifully written, and with themes concerning real-life situations and relationships. No serials. XD I have too little patience for those.

p.s: sorry I've been gone for a while.

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 17:36:50 GMT

-will be selling some prints, badges and cards ( leftover from Fort Canning Park Art Market this weekend.) . Infos ( plus photos, and all) will be coming in about two or three days from now....

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 08:22:18 GMT

a couple of stuff to be sold at Fort Canning Park Art Market. 9-10 June 2007. ( 12-9 @ Sat, 12-6 @ Sunday)

Including: Prints ( 10 - 12 pieces, all framed )
Fancy badges
Postcards

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 06:27:15 GMT

work in progress for a set of postcards.

test

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:39:15 GMT

First post.